Alien Technology Provides RFID Solution for Reusable Fish Crates

Alien Technology, an industry leader in UHF Gen 2 RFID products and services, and Scandinavian integrator partner ProSign announced a RFID traceability implementation solution for the Danish fish crate tracking consortium, Pack and Sea A/S.

Representing thousands of commercial fishing enterprises, Pack and Sea turned to ProSign to provide a solution to account for hundreds of thousands of leased reusable fish crates. ProSign provided robust encapsulated tags designed to endure harsh, wet environments, using Alien’s Higgs-3 based Squiggle inlays.

Efforts are underway to extend the system by having fishermen read the unique crates at sea to register the type of fish caught. Data would include size, quality, catch date, and catch location and would be transmitted to the harbor agency, enabling visibility on the kind and quantity of available fish to be auctioned. Data can further be used by authorities to confirm adhesion to fishing policies, thus greatly reducing policing efforts.

“Pack and Sea is the largest consortium of commercial fishermen in Denmark,” explained ProSign CEO Michael Jensen. “They required very durable RFID tags on hundreds of thousands of plastic crates to withstand routine supply chain logistics processes including high temperature cleanings and the continuous exposure of the reusable assets within a highly saline environment. Seawater is a very aggressive corrosive substance so it was critical to provide an extremely rugged and proven tag design solution. After subjecting all UHF Gen 2 inlays available in the marketplace to rigorous tests, we selected Alien’s Higgs-3 Squiggle inlay which provided the most consistent and long read range, so it was an obvious choice to make.”

Adds, Bent Kirk, director of Pack and Sea, “We chose RFID as a traceability solution to address a 100% accountability and location requirement for our plastic crates. The tagged crates are read prior to release to fisherman; as they are returned to washing facilities located throughout Europe; and at customer auctions to verify the billing account.”

“The benefits to Pack and Sea and the Danish fishing authorities are enormous – not only will they gain enhanced fish crate inventory control and enhance their revenue base for the leased crates, but RFID tagging will also assist fishing authorities to gain real time data on the fish being caught,” adds Stephen Crocker, director sales/channels EMEA/India for Alien Technology. “Over the past year, Alien has secured over a dozen reusable asset tracking applications throughout EMEA – working closely with our invaluable VASP channel integrators such as ProSign. It is a privilege for Alien to have been involved in such a demanding RFID application with ProSign, and most importantly, Pack and Sea.”